White Hall resident asks for improvements to street

By Editor | June 19, 2024 |

By Carmen Ensinger

A White Hall resident addressed the city council at the June 11 meeting concerning the street she lives on, which she said hasn’t been oiled and chipped like the other streets in town in over 20 years.
Beverly Evans, who lives on Penny Lane, a dead end street located across from White Hall Nursing and Rehab said she can only recall one time when her street was ever oiled and chipped in the entire time she has lived in her home, which is over 20 years.
“Since that one time, nothing has ever been done to our street,” she said. “If we have a pothole, the city comes down and throws filler in it, but it doesn’t last very long. Our street has broken up so bad that if you meet a car you have to pull over to let that car go by because there isn’t room on the hard surface for two cars to go by at the same time.”
Evans said she measured the width of the of the road in front of her house and it is only 11 feet wide.
“I can kind of tell where the original road was and it was approximately 18 feet wide,” Evans said. “Where the corner turns it is less than six feet wide. We would really like to have the city consider putting it back to the original width and maintaining it. I realize we are a dead end street and we don’t have high traffic, but we would like for something to be done.”
Mayor Brad Staats said they would see what could be done.
Alderman Todd Pinkerton-Riegel said the Lions Club did some fund raising last year and were wanting to put some hanging pots down Main Street.
“They would like to put four to six post baskets down Main Street,” he said. “We are considering from the bank all the way down to across from Scotties on both sides. They would be placed in between the existing planters already there.”
Since there are already planters there which contain flowers, Alderwomen Sue Vinyard and Pam VanMeter felt that putting more flowers along that stretch would be a little too much.
“I just feel like we are putting too many flowers along that area,” VanMeter said. “You have the small pots that the Garden Club maintains. I just feel if you put these there that downtown is going to get overcrowded with flowers.”
Vinyard felt that it would be better use of the money if the Lions Club were to purchase trash receptacles
“I think it would be if the Lions Club would use this money to purchase trash cans to be put in this downtown location,” she said. “I just feel like this is something that would be used year round.”
Alderman Ryan McMillen felt it was their (Lions Club) money and they should be able to buy and donate what they wanted.
“If the Lions Club wants to buy flower pots and donate them to beautify this city then let them donate whatever they want,” he said. “If the city wants to do something about the trash cans, let the city look into getting a decorative cover for the ones we have there now.”
Pinkston-Riegel said he would be okay with tabling the issue for now and going back to the Lions Club and telling them that based on the allotted space they would rather look at putting the planters somewhere else.
City Treasurer Mona McMillen asked the city to purchase a new laptop computer for use in City Hall at a cost of $1,200.
“We have been doing a lot of training through different webinars and it is hard to concentrate doing them on the office computers with the phones ringing and people coming in all the time,” she said. “Ryan (McMillen) brought in his laptop for us to use and we brought it into the council room and it was so much nicer for us to be able to come in here and use it without the distractions.”
The city’s lack of technology has even been a point of embarrassment.
“At our last schooling we attended, we were sitting there with our notepad and pen and everyone else was sitting there taking notes on their laptops,” McMillen said. “It was quite embarrassing. It would be a lot simpler if we had a laptop we could use.”
The council approved the purchase.
Alderman Pinkerton-Riegel said that back in April or May, the city was called down to a property on Bridgeport Street to look at trees located on a property and do something about them.
“Kendra Crabtree runs a daycare at this location and her insurance will not let her have the kids in the back yard because of the trees hanging over the fence,” he said. “I thought we had approved talking to Ronnie Jackson to come in and get rid of those trees. I would like to see where that is at.”
Mayor Staats said that it had been rainy and windy on the weekends and that he was going to get to it. However, if they are their trees, then they will have to have them cut down themselves.
“I was just trying to do them a favor,” Mayor Staats said. “I will get ahold of him as soon as the weather breaks.”
The city tabled a motion of hiring someone to do code enforcement.
“When I talked to Luke (Police Chief Coultas), he said he was not interested in helping,” Alderwoman VanMeter said. “He doesn’t want the other officers doing things either. He says it is his and Neal (McPherson’s) responsibility.”
VanMeter is unhappy with the code enforcement.
“I just feel like we are not getting anywhere,” she said. “When I talked to him, he said city ordinances were ranked 19th on his list of things to do. If he has that many things ahead of him, I don’t think he will be able to help us out.”
VanMeter said she even had a suggestion for Coultas that he turned down.
“I asked him if he couldn’t assign a police officer to each ward so if we had a complaint we could contact that officer and he could look at things and see if there was an issue and he said absolutely not,” she said. “He said he didn’t want that.”
Mayor Staats agreed with VanMeter.
“There are things in this city that need to be addressed,” he said. “And you can’t fight them in court without a ticket.”
City Attorney Todd Parish said the council might want to rethink the issue of taking things to court.
“First off, this is not a money maker for the city – it doesn’t do what you think it should,” he said. “An ordinance violation allows you to give notice to a landowner and after so many days if the violation isn’t corrected, then the city can go in and clean it up and then put a lien on the property. If you want it cleaned up, that is the way to get it cleaned up.”
Parish said just that morning he had 10 ordinance violation cases brought before the judge and the judge continued seven of them because they couldn’t pay.
“It costs you money every time I go to court representing you,” he said. “Very seldom, I would say 8 times out of 10, it doesn’t result in getting cleaned up. The fine goes to collections and there is still a mess on the property so it is really not the most efficient way of getting things cleaned up.”
The council decided to table the issue.
The council approved altering the water transmission route to the new water tower. Alderman McMillen came up with a better route which would save the city a significant amount of money.
“After looking at the maps and talking with our guys, I brought up coming straight across the field across Clark Drive between Bunn and the bus garage making it a straight shot,” McMillen said. “I have faith that our guys can do it which would save us about $300,000 if we do it this way.”
The city approved the purchase of a hydrovac for use in all departments.
“Back in April, we talked about using a line of credit at the bank to finance the projects we want to do,” Pinkston-Riegel said. “However, I think that we should pay for the hydrovac outright and then finance at a reduced interest rate if we need to.”
The city will pull funds out of the water, sewer and gas funds since all department will be using the piece of equipment. The city has been borrowing Roodhouse’s hydrovac to do a lot of the lead line locating, so they know how valuable the piece of equipment is.
“The uses for that hydrovac will be astronomical to do things in town,” Pinkerton-Riegel said. “And with the fiber optic in town, now it is a no-brainer.”
The ballfields at the Rez will be getting new fencing after the council approved a bid of $9,200 for the fencing. This is for removing all of the old fencing and installing the new fence as well as putting up a new backstop and batting area.
Pinkston-Riegel said the White Hall Stoneware Club has donated $2,000 towards the project from the sale of their commemorative piece this year. This will reduce the city’s cost to $7,200.
The council approved the removal and inspection of a pump on the east end. Richard Electric wanted $2,600 to take it out and $400 to inspect it. However, Killions will take it out for $1,000 and deliver it to Richards Electric in Quincy. The council decided to use Killions to take the pump out at a cost of $1,000 and Richards Electric to do the inspection at $400.
The city will get getting rid of its water sales at the end of August in preparation for the water tower project. The building would have to be moved when the project gets underway and it doesn’t make enough money for the city to warrant the cost of moving it and re-establishing it elsewhere.
Alderman Dave Meldrum submitted his letter of resignation, effective June 10. Meldrum stated that the reason for his resignation was because of his job and that he didn’t have enough time to devote to the city..